Contemporary telecommunication technologies have enabled various client-based teleconference applications that involve data transfer over the Internet. Participants of a teleconference are not required to be physically in a same location (hereinafter “a physical meeting”), such as a conference room or a meeting hall. Rather, some or all of the participants may be located remotely from each other, and yet through teleconferencing are still able to virtually “meet” each other, namely, to communicate in a real-time manner as if they were physically together. In general, teleconferencing employs technologies to present at least the voice of each participants to all other participants during the meeting. In many cases, teleconferencing may also at the same time live-stream video data (e.g., real-time motion or facial expression) of one or more participants to other participants. In either case, a caller may call into a teleconference using a calling device, such as a telephone, to join the teleconference as a participant. Examples of teleconference applications include, but are not limited to, telephone teleconferencing, videoconferencing, web conferencing, augmented reality conferencing, and the like.
Nevertheless, a teleconference poses a major difficulty as compared to a physical meeting. It is important, regardless a meeting is conducted as a teleconference or a physical meeting, to identify who each of the participants is. However, when a caller makes a telephone call and attempts to attend a teleconference, it is not always trivial for a host of the teleconference and/or other participants to identify who the caller is. Even if the caller identifies himself/herself at one time during the meeting, the caller may be listed on a teleconference interface as “Caller No. 1”, “Caller No. 2”, or similar identifications with little meaning. Also, as compared to the case of a physical meeting, it is often not as clear to a new participant who other participants are in a teleconference, especially for those participants who present themselves only by his/her voice and without video streaming. As a result, the efficiency and meeting quality of teleconferences is often compromised due to inability of identifying new or existing meeting participants in a timely manner.
In addition, as compared to the case of a physical meeting, it is not as obvious to existing participants of a teleconference when there is a new participant attending the meeting. For example, existing meeting participants may not notice a new participant who is listed as nothing but “Caller No. 3” on a teleconferencing device or facility. Consequently, a person who is not supposed to be in a teleconference may be sitting in a meeting without being noticed by other participants.